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Superintendent for two SLO County school districts gets 10% raise

January 17, 2022

Scott Smith

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

The administrator who is serving as the superintendent of two North Coast school districts, and is collecting six-figure pay from each, recently received a 10 percent raise. [Tribune]

Scott Smith, the superintendent of both the Cayucos Elementary and Coast Unified school districts, now makes $220,085 a year, plus benefits. Smith’s salary is split evenly between the two districts, which after agreeing to the raise, each now pay him $110,043 annually to serve as their superintendent. Smith also receives $55 a month as a cellphone stipend.

Prior to the 2019-2020 school year, Smith served only as the superintendent of the Cayucos Elementary School District. In that role, Smith earned a salary of $150,255.

In 2019-2020, Smith took on the dual role of being superintendent of both Cayucos Elementary and Coast Unified, with a salary of $185,000. Smith’s pay increased to $194,250 by the start of the 2020-2021 school year and to $200,077 at the beginning of the current academic year.

Chris Castillo, a Cayucos Elementary School District board member, said Smith’s latest raise amounts to a vote of confidence by the board. Smith is doing a great job, and the board wants to make sure he stays, Castillo said.

During a school board meeting last Wednesday, several Cayucos community members criticized Smith while speaking out against his 10 percent raise. Smith intimidated and harassed people who wore masks at school and at prior board meetings, several speakers said. Those speakers accused Smith of not doing enough to enforce the California Department of Health’s indoor mask mandate at schools.

Additionally, some of the public commenters who spoke against Smith’s pay raise said they want to end the shared services agreement between the two school districts. Cayucos should have its own superintendent as was the case in the past, they said.

Smith, in turn, said he will continue doing his job no matter how individuals judge him.

“Taking districts through COVID makes for a lot of difficult decisions along the way. Some of them, unfortunately, have become controversial,” Smith said. “I just want to keep serving the kids and serving the parents when possible.”


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No one connected to today’s public schools deserve a raise in my opinion….


-1

Josh tiptoed right up to it, but ultimately let the Tribune tell this story for him.


CESD Trustee Val Wright is currently employed by Scott Smith at Coast Union. You better believe he voted to give Scott a raise!


Trustee Chris Castillo negotiated this sweet agreement for Scott. Castillo is on record saying he’s a 50-year friend of Scott’s and believes everything he says. In the Tribune Castillo said he decided to give Scott a raise as a “vote of confidence”.


Cayucos is for Cronies.


-1

I just received a raise at work. I guess I should feel bad because others now make less than me. Is that how it works?


1

Scott, deserves this raise! He works hard and actually cares about the kids. A local boy done good!


0

Jealous much? Since when is having a good paying job a crime? Everyone is free to turn in their application…


-5

Jealous? No. When we continue to pay for obscene levels of govt beurocracies and then wonder why our taxes rise and productivity falls, that does not make me jealous, it makes me angry.


We could probably cut 30% of school overhead and be more efficienntt than we are now. Instead they create more beurocracy to justify there own existence.


I saw this 20 years ago while briefly doing some consulting work in the computer business. It really was frightening.


0

Ridiculous. Prop 13 took money away from schools—REALLY???

.

Look at the comparison

This person makes about $225,000 just in salary for ????? number students. One of the schools showed 250 students. Maybe 1100 total students for all the schools under him?

Then you have redundant business managers, asst managers. etc for the 2 school districts. That alone will add up to at least an additional $300,000. Under that you have much more redundancy.


Meanwhile look at Michigan (yes I know lower cost of living).

An average Supt of Schools averages about $200,000 salary and has about 8,000 students. They do not have all that other redundancy under them e.g. only 1 business office , HR etc.


California is a series of fiefdoms. Look at the water districts for each little town 2-3 for each with its own management staffs.


Ridiculous!!!


20

Whew! Good thing for the cell phone stipend! One can hardly pay their phone bills these days…


Thank you, teachers unions, for going on strike to only raise teacher pay EVERY TIME, but not to increase the budget for classrooms and materials. Our children…the ones actually in school…are in total awe of your greed.


15

Nice to see some huevos Cal Coast….toxic school board has long helped Cayucos be a stopping ground for those on the way up. Why don’t you check out Brucsia next, this is where he started. By the way Mr. Smith is a good principal. Both my kids attended this institution. Thank you for shedding light on the over paid salaries of gov. school administrators. Especially when the educators should be ashamed of themselves for destroying so many young peoples lives during this over reach of gov.called COVID


8

Ridiculous and obscene.


43